Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-11-17
M0NG0LIAN TARTARS.
A MISSIONARIES RECITAL OF TIN
YEARS LABOR WITH THEM.

A Wild, Ungovernable Race Living in
Tents-The Great Temple of Thibet.
Mines of Coal, Copper and Silver
Hunting the Chamois.
A strangely stirred Belgian priest arrived
on the last steamer from China. He is Rev.
Father Gundy, president of the Roman Catho-
lie missions in Mongolia, where he has been
arduously laboring for ten years past. He is
a man of about 40 years of age, with a full
flowing beard and rich silken gown of an
Oriental design Other marks of dress be-
tokened him a resident of land most remote
from ours. A reporter sought an interview
with him He said:
MY life work has been with the Tartars
who inhabit N, ngolia, and the scenes of my
work have been close by the great wall of
China. The commercial emporium of Mon
golia is Kalgan, town of 10000 inhabitants.
1t is here that the Russians come TO buy
chamois skins and tea, which the Chinese
residents of Mongolia raise in immense guam
| titles. The Mongolians themselves despise
tillmg the ground, and as the land belongs to
the different tribes their chiefs have been
selling it off to the Chinese.
'The Mongolians are descendants of the
| old Tartars, and raise tens of thousands of
| cattle and horses Beyond this they do moth,
| ing excepG hunt. They are wild, ungovern-
able race living in tents. They are magnifi,
cent horsemen, something like your wild In.
| dians. Their religion is Tartaric Buddhism
! One of their sacred temples is at Khnbun. Ii
Thibet is the great temple of U Lassa, con
strueted after the manner of an Indian
Buddhist temple. Only one or two Euro
| peans have ever been admitted within it.
sacred precincts. They think the mere ad
mission of a foreigner within its portal
would forever detile it.
THE RUSSIAN INVASION
"The Russians, who tried to invade thi
country three years ago, have relinquishet
their effort. They got two consulates estah
lished on the Mongolian coast, and they hav
had to give way. They now have open port
as far as Peking, but no farther. All tn
talk you hear of invasions from the Russian
now goes for nothing. Mongolia is unde
the domain of China.
, 'The country is largely desert, althoug
with water it is exceedingly productiv,
There are very rich mines OF copper and 81
yer as well as magnificent beds of coal MOI
golia is colder than China, and consequent
= the inhabitants, although dressing somewhf
like the Chinese, put on more clothes. The
. are unlike the Chinese entirely otherwis
being more aggressive and warlike. The
: are not a tractable race by any means.
Hunting the chamols Is great sport wit
the Mongollans. They are skilled horsemt
and dead shots with their weapons, a variet
of which they use. They are also skiilf
| with the dart
In the ten years that / have been the
| we have succeeded in converting about q, o
OF these wild TartaIs Though wild they a
open to civilizing and humanizing influence
but there are so many of them, and the
country is so large, that it takes long viii
to make much effect upon them as a mass.
ie The reverend gentleman is gong home
s. Belgium. He is accompanied by wealtl
resident of Brussels, Viscount de Benghei
- who, from March to July last, has been ma
ing tour of certain parts of Mongolia al
y studying up the habits of the natives.-S
Francisco Examiner Interview